It's a Guy Thing, I Guess
Today I called a towing service to see about having my 1981 Ford Bronco hauled to our usual garage for major repairs, and the tow truck was on its way when I called back to cancel the job. What should have been a simple starter replacement now looks like it'll also have to include replacing the battery, checking a practically new alternator for problems, and more than likely the conclusion that there's a short somewhere in the wiring. And on top of that, the brakes have been worked on twice already without any solution to that problem.
I bought the Bronco in the summer of 1999, just before Chris and I learned we were to be leaving Alaska to move down here to west Georgia. One problem that became evident early on with this truck was that sometimes the starter wouldn't want to turn over. It was an intermittent problem, and didn't cause any serious inconvenience on the two-week drive down the Alaska Highway and across the Land of Free and Home of the Brave. In fact, I didn't have any real problem with it until the fall of 2000, when the first attempt to fix the brakes resulted in a major screwup of the wheel bearing housing in one corner -- major fluid leak, cost over a grand to fix, can't drive on it until then lest that wheel burn up and cost thousands to fix. It was laid up for 15 months while we tried to think of ways to come up with the money, but finally last December I drove it to our garage to see what could be done. Turned out the brake place had put the wrong parts in place, it wasn't as bad as they'd subsequently diagnosed. (If you're ever tempted to let any Midas location do anything with an older vehicle except brakes and mufflers, just shoot yourself up front and get it over with quickly.)
It was fortunate the Bronco was once again driveable last January, since my otherwise daily driver got stolen from a parking lot while I was at work, and it took entirely too long to get the thing back after it was recovered. Meanwhile I tried again to have the brakes fixed, and once again it didn't take. But at least this time there was no other damage done. But suddenly, not long after we got the stolen car back, the Bronco would just up and refuse to start. Constantly. Persistently.
So for most of this year now, the truck has sat in the driveway rusting and, apparently, losing every last amp from its brand new battery. We've already shelled out too much on it, and in the 3½ years I've had it it's been out of commission for about two years total. The downside to spending more money, especially given its additional new problems, is enormous. The upside, looked at realistically, simply doesn't exist.
I'm going to call an outfit called Charity Motors that will haul it away and give me a receipt for a tax deduction for its value, which money they will donate to a charity of our choosing. In its present condition it won't be much, but we'll have one less vehicle to take in for annual smog inspection, one less vehicle to pay insurance on, one less vehicle to pay tag fees for. That spot in the driveway will finally be clear, making it a whole lot easier to mow the lawn around there.
Still, it's going to hurt to give that thing up. When it was running, it was like driving around a piece of Alaska. It's a big truck, a "more power" truck as Tim Allen might put it. Its cargo capacity has my car and Chris' rice-burning SUV beat all to hell.
None of which does any good if it's out of commission most of the time.
Somehow, having it towed away doesn't seem fitting. I feel like I should be able to put it out of its misery in a more humane manner, then pile some rocks over it so the buzzards and coyotes can't get at it.
It's been a pain in the ass and a drain on our finances, and it's good riddance but I'm going to miss it anyway.
It's definitely a guy thing.
Makes You Go, "Hmmmm..."
Just caught portions of a program on the History Channel called "The Men Who Killed Kennedy." I know that a lot of skeptics of the official findings place a great deal of importance on alleged irregularities in the autopsy and all, but something occurred to me that comes from back in my high school days when I too was a skeptic of the official Warren Commission verdict.
After JFK was shot, the doctors in Dallas tried to save his life -- this in spite of the massive head trauma obvious from the Zapruder film. All sides, pro-conspiracy and anti-, agree that Kennedy had massive wounds and had lost a lot of brain tissue. Yet the doctors acted as though they thought they could save his life.
It's now known that JFK was not in the robust health his handlers presented. He was prescribed a cocktail of medications but his medical records were classified. I don't know how these medications might have interacted with drugs the trauma room doctors, acting without access to a full medical background, might have administered. But it's a valid question.
So, suppose (for the sake of ignorant speculation) the doctors inadvertently hastened the President's death. Or worse, suppose there really was a chance they could have saved him, but their good-faith action on the basis of incomplete information made that impossible. Of course, exposing the doctors' mistake would have exposed the cover-up of Kennedy's true medical condition.
Another consideration is that a surviving JFK would have been unable to resume the duties of the presidency -- yet under the laws of the time he could only be removed from office by death, resignation (which he could not have done in what would probably have been a vegetative or near-vegetative state), or the expiration of his four-year term of office.
Back in 1881, President James Garfield lingered for months after being shot. He could not execute the duties of the presidency unless he could recover from his wounds, but every effort using the cutting edge of 1880s medical technology failed to save his life. Only after months of an effectively vacant presidency was Vice President Chester Arthur able to fill the void upon Garfield's death.
Arguably, people had a better grasp of American history in 1963 than today; the 1881 ordeal would have certainly occurred to someone in the President's retinue once the full scope of Kennedy's injuries was explained. Leaving aside the relative political merits of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, what would have been the best decision for the country?
Such relatively innocent factors, involving decisions no one could have been proud of making, might very well explain at least some of the things on which the Great JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theory is built. It would have been much better for the American people to have known the truth about their President's health, and it would have been much better if any other efforts to control information had not been undertaken. Invariably, reasonable questions left without satisfactory answers create fertile ground for speculation.
As I say, I have no way of knowing whether there's anything to this. I'm saying up front this is nothing but ignorant speculation. But it has the advantage of assuming that people are more likely to make mistakes than to organize conspiracies. Because it's been my observation that is indeed the case.
Don't Get Me Wrong
I want to send out a shout of thanks to Ricky West of North Georgia Dogma, without whom my Windows 2000 upgrade couldn't have happened. Although I've had a few misfires and glitches in making it happen, I am -- as he predicted -- much happier with the upgrade than I was with Windows 98.
I found that my USB-based Ethernet connection couldn't be supported under W2K (as we computer geek wannabe's call it), but fortunately I had bought Ethernet-in-a-Box so we could hook up an old PC to the LAN that had no USB support (and after the USB card I had installed in it failed to work), and those packages come with two NICs, so now the second one is in my bugbox and that problem -- one of really only two major problems to turn up during all this -- is history. The other problem was that W2K didn't come with an SVGA driver that would support my monitor, but once I found the automatically generated incompatibility report and identified the driver I needed, it was a simple matter to download it and get back the full richness and clarity of 21st-century PC display capability. The XP-like "skin" I've installed (by "WindowBlinds") just wouldn't have looked the same in 640x480, 16-color VGA...
Since the USB Ethernet isn't supported under W2K, my wife's laptop will have to remain W98 until the PC card NIC arrives and I can get that installed for her. She's been having problems with her Ethernet connection on USB anyway, so a PC card NIC will be an improvement even without an operating-system upgrade.
So anyway, thanks Ricky. Sorry about all the e-mails about little troubles that I found my way out of just moments after hitting "Send." That's usually how it works with me, I guess.
A Message to Tailgaters
My truck is no eighteen-wheeler, or even a CXT—but when people complain about vehicles that are too big to see around, they’re not talking about eighteen-wheelers, or even vans or pickup trucks with shells over the bed. They’re usually talking about SUVs, and sometimes they’re stupid enough to confuse a truck like mine with an SUV.
Usually these complaints come from people who drive 80 mph down the interstate with their front bumper six inches away from my back bumper (those inches are mostly vertical, too), apparently never realizing that if they could back off just two inches their view of the highway ahead would improve magnificently.
At retailSFERICS Yippee-Ki-Yay-mart I am now offering a bumper sticker with a message for these complainers. I have a few on their way to me already. You might consider buying one or two for yourself or someone you know.
I Spy, with My Little Eye
Wizbang readers are sounding off about Jay Tea’s adventure with an in-law’s spyware riddled computer. Endorsements of Firefox, Unix, and even the Mac are flying fast and furious (note: I use Firefox, but not because of any alleged anti-spyware advantages—this is the first I’ve heard of them), but I have a simpler suggestion.
I’ll also take the opportunity of this post to announce that the two-tiered blogroll is history; all blogs that had been divided among the two ‘rolls are now consolidated onto one. However, to alleviate my tendency toward information overload, it’s only displaying the 25 most recently updated blogs. Some of y’all who don’t seem to ping the update-notification servers may find you’re not appearing. There’s something you can do about that…
I would perhaps add only that anyone who blames others (e.g., “da Jooz") for the death of Christ, rather than taking the responsibility upon himself as a sinner, thus declares himself not a Christian, for so failing to appreciate the gift of the Redemption that he refuses to accept it. But that’s just corollary.